Butter Driving Up Prices

6th September 2017

Dear Valued Customer

I write as I feel you trust us to do the correct job for you, regarding not only the product we supply but also delivering this product at a price that makes you competitive and profitable in the market.

You are no doubt aware of the ebb and flow of commodity prices that we see year in, year out. Our usual strategy is to work hard, follow the market closely and buy well, often on contract at source. We then use this information and review prices annually in January. This model has worked for 15 years until now.

Sadly we live in unprecedented times with many raw material prices rising to levels never seen before. In the case of butter, we are currently in the midst of a price surge of 300% on the cost from late 2016. This is in the summer/autumn seasons where we usually see lowest prices for dairy.

The impact of this is made even greater as, at the same time, we are dealing with price increases for egg (up 20%), vanilla (up 522%), sugar (up 33%) and packaging (up 12%). Until now, we have absorbed all these increases in the hope that they would settle down, but, regrettably, we can no longer ignore the current situation or the projection that prices will rise even further!

With immediate effect, we have no choice but to raise our prices. At midnight on Sunday 10th September, we will have a blanket rise of 0.20-0.30p on all cakes in our Traybake, Brownie, Boost, Flapjack and Loafcake ranges. TrayCAKES will rise by 0.50p.

We have decided that a blanket rise will keep product selection and selling prices more even. If we were to only increase the products containing butter then we would be looking at a rise of 0.90- 1.00p per tray. This should avoid the need for tier pricing at the till and strip away confusion for the customer.

As ever, we will continue to work hard to provide high quality, natural, interesting and competitive products for you and your customers.